Advantages And Drawbacks Of Cloud Computing for Business

Many people believe that cloud computing is by far the best solution for our modern age. It enables small businesses to have access to the most advanced technology without having to pay and arm and a leg for it. If you are a small business owners, you can afford to run your entire business in the cloud.

Nonetheless, there are some voices that claim there are some major drawbacks to this idea. Under these circumstances, how can we decide whether cloud computing is good or bad for our business? This article is going to take a look at some advantages and drawbacks of cloud computing.

Let's start with the pros.

1. Better Disaster Recovery

When your business data is stored in the cloud, retrieving your data in the event of hardware malfunction is easier and less expensive. Such systems can be set up to perform regular backups, thus making disaster recovery a breeze.

2. Better Collaboration And Flexibility

Having your data in the cloud means that your employees have better opportunities to collaborate. They can sync the documents and work on them without fearing they are going to use the wrong version. When you work in the cloud, you always have access only to the latest version of all stored documents, all updates being done in real time.

In addition, cloud computing allows people to work from different locations. The data is always going to be centralized in the cloud, so all that's needed to access it is a computer with internet access.

3. Environmentally Friendly

Since cloud computing contributes to the reduction of the energy consumption, is can decrease the carbon footprint of you business by more than 30%. In case of small companies, this energy saving can reach a whopping 90%, being therefore an excellent money saving solution. Besides, it can help you create an eco friendly image for your business.

If you want further details of why cloud computing is so in vogue then check out this blog from Capita IT resourcing.

Now, let's see three drawbacks of cloud computing.

1. Internet Connectivity Requirement

Running your business in the cloud is awesome, but only for as long as you have a good internet connection. If you live or work in an area with poor internet connectivity, you are going to experience a lot of problems that will prevent you from doing your work. When choosing the cloud, you should be aware that even the best servers go down every now and then, so you should think about a backup plan to have yourself covered for this kind of situations.

2. Ongoing IT Maintenance Costs

Switching to cloud computing don't require huge upfront investments. However, in some situations, you may be better off by choosing an in-house solution. Buying your won server and installing it may need a large investment, as well as ongoing IT maintenance costs.

When you choose cloud computing, you pay the same amount of money every month, the server maintenance being included in these costs. Before making your choice, you should compare all the costs, in order to see whether you should go for an in-house server or stick to a cloud-based one.

3. Security

If your business operates with highly sensitive information, you may not want to have your data stored in the cloud. In such situations, you should rather have your own IT department, in order to maintain the security of your data. Cloud computing implies that you have to trust a third party to have access to your sensitive information, so you should be very careful when choosing this solution for your business.

If your small business already has an IT department able to lock-down your data, this should be just fine. If not, you should perhaps consider storing your data in the cloud, as it would provide you better security than your own IT people.

One former Scotland Yard detective considers you are ultimately responsible for fully controlling your data. Sometimes, it may be very difficult to assess the trustworthiness of third parties, and the opportunity of cloud computing.

As you can see, both options have their pros and cons. This is why you should think about all of them carefully, and choose what's best for your business.